Brazil's stocks weakened on Friday, after the central bank bought US dollars, and after a rise in US wage inflation raised concerns US interest rates might rise further attracting money away from emerging markets. The Sao Paulo Stock Exchange's Bovespa index fell 1.18 percent to close at 36,101.9 points and the real fell 0.37 percent to 2.183 per dollar.
US employers added 121,000 workers to payrolls in June, fewer than the 185,000 median estimate in a Reuters poll of economists. But wages rose 3.9 percent from the same period a year earlier, the biggest year-over-year increase in five years.
The US job figures were "benign," but traders and analysts probably paid more attention to the acceleration in wages that signal higher inflation, said Alexandre Sant'Anna, a stock analyst at ARX Capital Management in Rio de Janeiro.
Steelmaker Usiminas led declines in the Bovespa, falling 2.53 percent to close at 79.05 reais. State controlled oil driller Petrobras, the heaviest stock in the Bovespa index, fell 0.81 percent to 42.80 reais. Fixed-line phone company Telemar, also among the most heavily weighted stock in the index, fell 1.58 percent to 27.46 reais.
Pulp producer Aracruz Celulose lost 2.25 percent to 11.31 reais. The company said on Friday second-quarter net income fell 53 percent to 230.1 million reais ($105.8 million) from a year earlier, when fluctuations in the exchange rate gave the company an extra 320 million reais in profit.
Brazil's currency, the real, also weakened after the central bank bought dollars in the spot currency market for the fourth time this week, seeking to build up foreign reserves. The central bank resumed the purchases on Monday after almost a month and a half without buying the US currency because of increased market volatility.
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